Left by the Waterside
by Rolling Tomorrow
Summary: Even when Asbel and Richard could not see each other often, they always exchanged letters. While it is better than no contact, words on a page can often hide a storm in a heart. RichAss Week Day Three.


Left by the Waterside

Asbel was awake and escorting a runaway cow back into Lhant at the crack of dawn. He had been given the dreaded task of cow wrangling when he was woken up in the middle of the night and had not slept since. Though he normally would have insisted that the cow chase waited until morning, the light of the full moon made the white and black beasts easy to spot in the dark. He yawned as his companion mooed sympathetically, though made no attempt to hasten her pace. Asbel started to walk a bit faster and gently pulled on the cow's reins, but the bovine let out a deep moo to signal that she wasn't going any faster.

It was later in the morning when he finally entered the walls of Lhant, which placed many of the citizens awake and out of their houses. He returned the cow to its grateful owner, but declined the invitation to have breakfast with the family. He was secretly hoping to get home soon enough to nap.

Lhant Manor was still mercifully quiet when he got home. He opened the door to his office slowly, hoping to creep in unnoticed and retreat to the couch for a much needed nap. However, he glanced toward his desk and saw that he was not the first one awake. A large stack of new mail waited for him.

Divided between duty and sleep, he picked what was more essential to accomplish his duties effectively: sleep. However, as soon as he sat down, he started to wonder if there was anything from the capital waiting for him in the pile. He summoned whatever remained of his energy and trudged over to the pile. He flipped through the stack hastily, paying little attention to anything that did not have the elegant handwriting he was looking for. When he spotted it, he tore the envelope open to read the letter from Richard.

_Dear Asbel,_

_I hope that you are doing well and that the burdens of lordship are not weighing too heavily on you. I apologize for potentially adding more to your workload, but I will be making a diplomatic trip to Fendel in a fortnight. It would be my honor for you to accompany me, I will be leaving Windor in two weeks, on Wednesday._

_Political matters aside, are you and Sophie doing well? It would be wonderful if we could all go to the Lake Grale Festival this year. Duke Dalen would be more than willing to set two rooms aside for you, if you would like to come. I look forward to your response._

_Your friend,_

_Richard_

Asbel looked to the date that the letter was sent, fully ready to start packing. He ended up having to double take, for the date of the letter was surprisingly old. He flew over to his calendar to see how long ago the letter was written. His heart sank as soon as it rose when he realized that the Wednesday Richard spoke of was yesterday.

He considered making a mad departure from Lhant to catch up and even found himself looking to the clock, but his more responsible side had to remind him of the obstacles. Richard left from Windor yesterday; it was unlikely that Asbel would be able to catch up. Even if he could, he had no idea which route the royal entourage was taking up into the northern country. On top of that, even if he did arrive in Zavhert not long after Richard, it would not reflect well on Windor for him to show up, thoroughly out of the blue, and start asking about the king.

He stared at the calendar for a long moment before letting out a tired sigh. The brief surge of energy he felt was out the window, but it was accompanied with a feeling of guilt. He at least wanted to write a response immediately, even if it meant forgoing on a chance for a nap. He sat down at his desk and reached for his quill halfheartedly.

_Dear Richard,_

_Word only reached Lhant this morning about the visitation to Fendel, I'm sorry that I was unable to accompany you. It came the day after your departure date, your letter must have gotten delayed somehow._

There were some letters that he didn't finish and ended up crumpling up then throwing away. Too often though, he wouldn't throw them away right when he put them aside. Instead, he would stick the unfinished letter in a pile to revisit later, in some foolish hope that he would actually decide to finish it.

_Dear Richard,_

_Would Duke Dalen blanch at a letter addressed to you with such an informal opening?_

He stared at the opening for a long moment and put it aside. He plucked the first letter he started out of the pile and crumpled it up irritably. He did have a rule about the letters he saved for revisiting, as unlikely as it was; only one could be saved per writing session. He started to reach for another piece of official letterhead, but thought better of it at the rate he was going.

_Dear Richard,_

_I'm sorry to have missed the chance to accompany you to Fendel, the letter came the day after your departure date. Something must have gone wrong with the mail between Barona and Lhant. It might have something to do with the couriers trying to go by boat instead of land to save time now. Nevertheless, I'm sorry._

_Is the trip going well? Was it about the valkines? I hope that the power situation in Fendel is improving. I actually recently approved to have more windmills constructed outside of Lhant, the old ones aren't enough to support the new houses they're building. We have a lot of people from the other countries buying or building summer homes here by the coast now that international relations are so much better. Some of the citizens are a little leery about the foreigners, but it's really great to see more people here._

_The Lake Grale Festival sounds great, I'm sure that Sophie would love to go. Have you already asked some of the other members of our old group? It seems like it's been forever since we all last saw each other._

_Your friend,_

_Asbel_

As always, part of him wanted to write more, but he felt it best to leave the letter off there. It always looked a little improper for a multiple page personal letter to go from a lord to the king if it was not accompanied by any government paperwork. He folded the letter and sealed it with wax, deciding that he would deliver it to the courier himself instead of waiting for them to pick it up.

Even if Richard would not get the letter until after he returned from Fendel, he still felt that it would leave the least margin for error if he brought it to the courier. Letters to and from the king usually received special treatment; it was quite strange that one would be delayed so long.

"Another letter to the king?" the courier asked, looking surprised. "So soon?"

"Yeah, it'll go by land, right?" Asbel asked, hoping that the man would not ask anything more about his correspondence with Richard.

"I hope nothing's afoot, I've never seen so many letters exchanged between a lord and a king," he said as he placed the letter in a bag separate from the rest of the outgoing mail.

"It's nothing to worry about," Asbel said dismissively. "And the transport type…?"

"Oh, yeah, only mail coming from Barona is coming by ship," he replied with a nod. "We still have to send it out via turtlez, we haven't been able to coordinate with Barona's courier to use their ship…and we can't afford a ship of our own."

Asbel listened to long winded response and nodded, deciding that he should depart before the courier started appealing for a grant. "Thanks for your help."

"Any time, Lord Asbel!"

And so Asbel waited for a response, for one week to pass, then two. He guessed that Richard may have stayed in Fendel for over a week. With the travel time added on to that, it only made sense that it was taking a long time for a response to come. Asbel found himself wondering at the oddest times, like when he was having dinner alone or when he woke up to an empty Lhant Manor.

~oOo~

Richard could only ever find time to work on personal letters after he retired for the night in his own quarters. If he stayed in his office, at least a dozen other, more time sensitive issues would present themselves to him before he could even get a paragraph written. All but one candle was extinguished when he sat down at the table in his bedroom to write a response to Asbel. If he left too many on, someone would see the light under the door and take it as a sign that it was not too late to bring another problem to his attention.

He flexed his fingers a couple of times in a futile attempt to alleviate the ache from spending the day drafting laws and dealing with the royal court. One visiting noblemen had the grip of a crab; it was enough to make him wish that it was customary to bow instead of shake hands in countries other than Windor. Even so, he still had to respect the customs of Windor's new allies.

Though it was only his first day back in Windor after the lengthy trip to Fendel, Asbel's letter was waiting for him on his desk and he did not want to delay in replying. Even if it meant losing sleep, it was a minor sacrifice when compared to keeping in contact with Asbel.

~oOo~

Two weeks turned into a month as another full moon came. Asbel still tried to justify the long silence, guessing that Richard must have returned to Barona to a significant amount of backed up work. Asbel could barely leave his desk for more than a day without some type of crisis waiting for him and possibly an angry citizen literally banging on his window, he could only guess how much worse it must have been for Richard, with the entire country depending on him.

Sophie poked her head around the door into his office. "Asbel?"

"Hey," he said, smiling at her as he looked up from his paperwork. "What's up?"

"Did you hear from Richard about the festival yet?"

"Not yet," he said, careful not to sound disappointed. "He was on that trip to Fendel though, it'll take a while for us to get anything from him."

Despite his attempt to make light of it, Sophie still looked disappointed. "Tell me when you hear from him, okay?"

"Of course," he said with confidence he did not quite feel.

Asbel considered sending another letter, but he felt like it would only seem bothersome. It was highly unlikely that something could go wrong with the deliverance of both of their letters.

Regardless, as time continued to march on, he did start to wonder how low writing back to him was on Richard's list of priorities. He laughed a bit bitterly when he thought of it in those words though, for it was rather childish for him to hope that writing back to an old friend was terribly important to the king of a country.

The moon was nearly full for a second time when Asbel found himself out at dawn yet again. He rubbed his eyes tiredly as he walked down the gravel road toward Lhant with a suspiciously familiar cow behind him. He was walking past the low area that sloped into the stream when he noticed an odd sack sitting in the shallow water by the shore. He stopped and squinted at it before giving the cow a gentle pull to get her to follow him down.

The cow mooed irritably and jerked her reigns from his hand when he started to walk downward. He stopped and turned around to look at the cow, who stood very still and very dignified. She refused to look at him and instead turned her nose toward the sky in a huff.

"You're not coming?" Asbel asked lamely.

The cow blew air through its nose loudly in response and stayed perfectly stationary. Asbel took a step back, too tiredly to really ponder the fact that he was talking to a cow. He took another cautious step back, hoping that the cow would not flee as soon as he was a fair distance away from her.

"Stay," he said firmly, as though he were talking to a dog. "Be a good cow and stay. Stay."

He repeated the word for good measure before turning around and sprinting down the incline to the waterside. He glanced over his shoulder when he reached the beach, glad to see that the cow was checking out the nearby grass and not running away. Asbel kicked his shoes off and cuffed his pants up to wade into the water to grab the sack. He had to wade into water that was halfway up his shins before he reached the bag.

He pulled it out of the water and opened it up as he walked back to the shore, surprised to find it filled with waterlogged mail. There were only a few lucky envelopes from the side of the bag that was not submersed that only had damp corners, though many of the others were a mass of wadded, pulpy paper.

He did not have to look far to spot Richard's handwriting. A surge of guilt surfaced from the back of his mind as the thoughts of Richard not being concerned enough to respond were dashed from his mind. Unfortunately, the doubts were not the only things dashing. He only had one shoe back on when he looked up to see the cow doing the same thing, dashing away as she made another break for freedom.

"Hey!" he shouted, as though yelling would get the cow to pay attention to him. "Stop! Come back here!"

After a truly wild cow chase that was conducted in only one shoe, and after he went back to retrieve his other shoe, which was gone by the time he got there, he was able to sit down with the bag of wet mail. In some ways, all the running might have been a blessing in disguise, since it helped to dry the mail.

Nevertheless, he still had to leave most of it to sit in the bag until it was dry enough to attempt separating. Much of the mail was beyond saving, for the ink of the envelopes was smeared beyond recognition. Asbel was glad to find two letters that were from Richard, though one side of the older letter was difficult to discern.

_Dear Asbel,_

_There is no need to apologize at such lengths, it cannot be helped that something went wrong with the mail. Everything went smoothly in Fendel. The energy situation was indeed a topic of discussion and they are making good progress. The government is still somewhat resistant to routing power to all of the small villages in the country, but Chancellor Eigen is at least accepting of his duty to his people. I wish I could say the same for the rest of the officials in his government, but a step is still a step._

_Though speaking of Chancellor Eigen, Captain Malik had a heroic moment of sorts with him. After dinner, drinks were being served and the chancellor was rather eager to drain several glasses. The servants were a bit wary to keep serving him after his 'usual seven,' and sure enough, he choked on an ice cube in the next drink. It turns out that Captain Malik is rather proficient at the Heimlich maneuver. _

_I do hope that this letter will find you promptly though, so that we can solidify plans for the Lake Grale Festival. _

_Honestly, I was thinking that the festival could be a good chance for the three of us to spend time together, but I would be happy to invite the others as well. It would afford a pleasant chance for a reunion. Perhaps Pascal even has some extra communicators that would -/;',`'_

The ink ran in the three additional paragraphs, making them illegible. He squinted at them for a while, trying to pick out certain words before giving up and rereading the beginning of the letter. He smiled faintly at how diplomatically and politely Richard conveyed the fact that Chancellor Eigen was a bit of an alcoholic. He flipped to the second page, though he was a little lost due to all of the missing paragraphs.

_They were very apologetic for the mix up._

_The turtlez we left with instead was evidently addicted to a specific plant that grows on the border of Fendel and Windor, which delayed my return slightly as well. I imagine that this particular plant is rather common in the border area by Lhant._

_I look forward to hearing back from you. _

_Yours,_

_Richard_

He stared at the salutation and Richard's signature for a moment, distantly thinking that it was a bit different from the ways Richard usually ended his letters. It was also notably longer, even if a good portion of it was illegible. They usually both kept letters down to a one page maximum, since the couriers in both places were notoriously nosy.

Though Asbel had his work cut out for him sorting the rest of the mail, he continued on to the next letter, though this one was in worse shape than the last one. Only half of the envelope was submerged, but it rendered half of the page illegible. He handled the paper gently; it became brittle when it dried.

_Dear Asbel,_

_It feels like it's been so long since we exchanged letters. I hope that_

_make the best of your role as lord, for the people of Lhant are _

_very pleased with your leadership. They are fortunate to_

_There have been a lot of tourists in Barona, now that the weather is_

_have also had more people from our neighboring countries immigrating, I have_

_the people of Barona are also rather reluctant to accept the newcomers. Hopefully_

_to get along once the immigration is a common practice. _

_ Have you had the chance to think about the festival? Duke Dalen has_

_arrange for more rooms if needed. The festival is just a few weeks away now._

Asbel sighed as he tried to make sense of what the blurred words were. Richard's handwriting was filled with elegant loops, which while they were regally fitting for a king, it made them even harder to read when slightly blurry. He tapped his fingers against the desk exasperatedly and glanced toward the bottom of the letter. This time, Richard's salutation was thoroughly blurred beyond recognizing. It was a single word, but that was the only thing he was certain of.

* * *

Author's Note!

RichAss Week Day Three, Longing! Ironically, this is also my longest fic so far.

Should I continue this for the confession prompt? What do you guys think? I kind of set myself for that to work well…

LET'S PRETEND I PLANNED IT THAT WAY


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